If Only

If only
If only I could open my window
Look out at the sun
And manage a smile
If only I could mean my laugh
And not the tears
That spring from my eyes
If only I could lay down
My head on the pillow
At night, and not wonder
Of the day to come
If only I could sleep, dreamless
Not wish this day
Had passed differently
If only I could forget
And live on,
Catching hold, and letting go
If only I could say
It doesn't matter
As it never mattered
Until now
If only I could turn back time
Live those moments again
Differently
Happily
If only I could bring myself
To become other
Than who I've become
If only time had never passed
And those days of glory never ended
If only.

Writer's block!!

Now this is insane. It's nearing to...what...two months since I last wrote something worthwhile, and still the world of words has not returned from its extended vacation. I mean, look at this. Here I am, with my beloved laptop in front of me and with my fingers itching to get to the keys, and yet. And yet! There, look at that. I couldn't even get past that "and yet"!!!

Any form of art suffers from a pathological problem of "whimsicalness", if you know what I mean. Now, it doesn't matter if you have the greatest story framing itself in your head. It doesn't matter if the Oscars and the Bookers are all yours for the taking, definitely, truly, if only you could get this one onto the paper. Ah, if only. But it is not in your hand, is it. God has given you the TV of creativity to play and watch while he keeps the remote control in his hands. Just like that loving, annoyed and absolutely useless father who has no idea of the importance of Pokemon. Oh come on!! Don't switch it off!! The fun was just starting.
But no, no amount of pleading will keep the TV on, no amount of pleading will keep the creative juices flowing. Sorry, mate. Guy's gone for coffee. Can't help. Yeah, we all know what a wonderful writer you are, the very best, surely, and yeah, definitely you will make for the "Lifetime achievement award" or something, and as you leave can you please pass me the file and we can do some work?
And so you gasp and sigh and yawn and cry..well, not cry, but figuratively speaking, just to keep the rhyme...and you rant and rage and fume and you get up to attend that stupid lecture course of yours and look at the professor and do the only other thing that is worthwhile in life, which is hoping that the cute girl in the back will fall for you...

And that, by the way is all the more interesting, because there is an awesome part of your brain which claims that, yes indeed, the girl loves your writing, absolutely loves it, and she fancies you, if only, if only you could write that story. Oh, but you are neither handsome, nor brave, nor well-dressed, and in every concievable way you are an absolute asshole, so what other reason, pray, might she have for falling for you?

And that's where you lose hope, and give up, and try to immerse yourself in the numbers and matrices drawn on the board. Such, as Lewis Carroll wanted to say, is Divine perversity....

And such, as I would like to say, is the miserable blog post that arises out of a writer's block!!

Nothing specific...just venting my anger....

To Anger



Flow my lady, with wings of ire
Blackened raven of smothered desire
Flow red hot through my ashen veins
In these contorted times of pain

With bloody flames in this dark dark night
Set afire a million lights
Unsheath your sword of free disdain
Bring your thunder, your unforgiving rain

Wipe this smile upon my face
Bring forth your ruthless craze
Hold my heart in your iron fist
Take me out of this stifling mist

And on and on let your stormwinds blow
Till the lines of change have ceased to show
Till the dust's blown all out of town
And the whole damn paradise has been brought down

And cease not till the world, evil, vile
Has left its bed or ceased to cry
And, if only to seek revenge, the night
Has given way to harsh daylight

On love

So here I go on the beaten track again, you say. So be it. People more...interesting?...than me have fallen the great wazoo, if I may say so, the great wazoo of human emotions, never again to return. Since times immemorial (or let's say times memorial, just to stay on the safe side of political correctness), the human mind has been obsessed with this cute little idea of love. Obsessed? No, not really. More like exasperated, flabbergasted, astonished, ecstatic, and acutely pissed all at once. Not that that is a new phenomenon, of course; we humans have a habit of being all that, and more, with almost every known subject in the universe, but with love this (love?) affair has probably lasted the longest. I mean, hell, we still want to know about Helen of Troy, or Cleopatra, or somebody else's girlfriend, so much more than we want to know about the next President of the country. We never tire of talking in hushed tones by the campfire on a conspirational nights, of the "things" that are "going on".
And above all that, above all the gossips and lullabies and nursery rhymes and unbelievable history, there is this feeling of love itself, that nice gooey(?) feeling that every man seems to chase for the whole of his life, falling so often into things that look a lot like love but most often are not, that most often are just muck, pure and simple. But in the end, the very end, you do fall into it. You do end up standing on a rainy day with a rose in hand by the roadside, not thinking about the fact that you forgot the umbrella by your bedside, thinking merely about the fact that here comes your sweetheart, laughing heartily or smiling shyly, or bumbling stupidly, as you please (or love), and wondering why the fuck does time have to go so slow, and why the fuck she cant run over quickly and come and stand by your side. And time does run fast of course, awfully fast, just while she is by your side and talking and laughing and here comes the bus so I have got to go, bye, tata, sweet dreams and all the other lullabies you have to exchange before the sun goes down. That is it, really, for the day, and you have to sit at night and wonder and remember and think how much you love her and there goes your heart all bickery and panicky and I-am-going-so-kiss-my ass-ey, not caring for that poor little body that has to go to sleep, so help you God. And so you lie blissfully awake while your heart goes on beating(which living heart doesn't, but, figuratively speaking) and your mind goes on dreaming.
And there are so many sides to it, so many to love I mean; you enter into it expecting paradise, but it is just Mother Nature at her most powerful. There are storms as you have never seen before, there is lightning, and thunder, and yet there are gardens, and lakes and sunsets and sunrises. The world is so fucking beautiful, so damn fucking beautiful, and she is too, and damn this short circuited brain that cannot put a song for her on paper. All that comes is a stupid I love her.
And so we all bumble through life, and through love, one day or another. But how we wish it would never cease. How we wish we could love forever, we could be close and hold hands and just plain be good. Somewhere deep within that is what your heart wants, inspite of all the storms and all the lightning, but like all joys love, so often wears out, so often becomes a thing of the everyday, a thing of the mundane. It so very is not, I assure you, so very is not mundane, it is as wonderfully exotic a thing that could happen to you, but no, it's getting over, we can't go on. And that is when you give up, poor soul, that is where you let go, but someday, someday lying on a hospital bed with a creaking fan above you and a death clock ticking away somewhere in the background you will know, know that you must never have let go, know that the sweet intoxication of love never ends, it goes on, wavy and intermittent, but it goes on, one long smile till eternity.
So hold that hand my friend, and kiss those eyes, and never let go, even if the storms grow big and hard. I'll leave you then, in the arms of love, that sweet garden of Eden, and take leave, but dare you take leave, dare you leave her, and, well that's that.
Funny really the way things work out. I did go on the beaten track again.....

Rebecca and me

The past few days have been, for me, severely depressing. It has been an awful low, as in a really very low low, something like a low with a 40 million ‘o’s in between –loooo….ooow. That low. I have been spending my days in a lab, alone, with the only company on offer a chat, occasionally, on gtalk. I have had nothing to dispel the loneliness, and even less to dispel the boredom. A friendless hour and a half spent, every morning and evening, in a bus, looking out of the window without registering anything, or maybe sometimes taking in the sunset obscured so ruthlessly but the concrete jungle of the city. An hour or so spent staring at a television, looking but not seeing. A barren, uninspired field inside my mind.
Yesterday I started reading Rebecca again, the only novel except Harry Potter, four years ago, that I am reading more than once. Yes, I have read it before, and it is still in my memory, and yet the novel dispels all the unfeeling sorrow within me, even now, even when I know what to expect. This time, in fact, the novel seems to me even richer. Every line written, every thought expressed falls like a raindrop from the sky and alights like a tear upon my cheek; they hold a greater magic now, they are more real, so real I can feel them, see them, taste them.
You might wonder what is so special about the novel. Move among the circles of avid readers around and you would scarcely find Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca mentioned, except in passing. Oh yeah, I read it. Good romance. Or maybe, yeah, had a horror touch to it. People have read it, sure, and liked it, but no one has seen it as it really is, or rather, as I see it. Because for me, the novel is not horror, not mystery, even though there is a death and the associated mystery; the novel is about that one character, that single fictional woman that strikes a chord with me more than any other person, real or imagined; that twenty-one year old heroine that Du Maurier created for this story, and was careful never to name.
I have met no one till now who appreciates the depth and beauty of that character. Perhaps because no one understands. People who read the novel talk only about how Rebecca occupies her thoughts, what a surprising revelation it is when the true nature of Rebecca is revealed. True, they are the defining points of the novel. But Du Maurier’s heroine is not just that, not just a vehicle for us to know about Rebecca. She has a life, and a life that is so vivid, so exquisite that in the novel she dwarfs the tall, dominating Rebecca in her prominence. The way she pretends confidence when Frith suggests she go to the Morning room, even when she doesn’t know where that is. The way she runs into the west wing just to escape meeting Maxim’s sister. The way she is afraid that someone will discover she has broken a vase. Her shy, timid personality, her absolute decapitating, yet unreasonable fear, her childish, humble ways, her ordinary, chaotic appearance; these are the things that make Rebecca the novel it is. Not Rebecca, not tall dominating Rebecca, not those tall, beastly rhododendrons that inhabit Manderley: the soul of the novel is a twenty one year old who is shy enough to be afraid of her own servants; and who, throughout the novel must even share her name with Rebecca.
But what of her, you ask. Why am I so concerned about her? I don’t know. Somewhere the novel reminds me of me. The way, when I first came to college, I sat erect in a plastic chair, perspiring, when a couple of seniors asked me to get a pack of biscuits, no more. The way, when faced with the task of calling up a guy I knew, knew quite well, to ask some doubts, I procrastinated for a full fortnight. The way I avert my eyes so often on seeing an acquaintance, for no reason whatsoever. God knows that I would run into a west wing myself, if I had one, whenever I had to make friends. Yes, by some surprising piece of coincidence, when Du Maurier drew up a picture of her heroine, she drew an amazing likeness of me.
Of course, I am not entirely a timid, blow-and-I-will-be-gone guy, or else I will never be where I am, past the JEE and a good rank at that. There is a part of me that is outgoing, a wee bit arrogant, and professional, there is a part of me that is Rebecca. The fact of the matter is that the world does not tolerate shyness, or timidity; the world does not tolerate Du Maurier’s heroine. It wants Rebecca, the charming, tall, dominating woman, the lady of the house, thoroughly professional and up to the task. It needs someone who will not run into the west wing when guests arrive, and if you do something like that it will look at you with bewildered, scornful eyes. You need to go out, fellow, talk to others, be beautiful, be the master, and the thorough businessman; a bumbling, timid guy who is content with his little cell of solitary comfort just won’t do. To be anything at all in this world you need to be Rebecca.
And that is what pricks my heart. The world is a fascist shithole, it scorns and scorns at Du Maurier’s heroine, making her realize at every step of the way that she is not like Rebecca, not what it wants, not what anybody wants. Let go of yourself, you are not needed, we need Rebecca. So either be Rebecca, or be damned. Y-Y-Yes sir, we will be Rebecca, all of us, and somewhere down the line we have six billion Rebeccas, Rebeccas who will rise to the top, trampling on others, crush the very friends they make, and yet not give a damn, and yet they will be beautiful, and yet they will be loved. Du Maurier’s heroine may have won, if only slightly; in the real world, it is Rebecca who wins. You are either Rebecca or you don’t exist.
Screw Rebecca.

The Art of storytelling

I wonder whether I am qualified enough to write this. I mean, hell, here I am, an amateur writer, and already I am talking anout the art of story-telling! Oh come on!
But, seriously. I mean, it is high time someone talked of story-telling. Not writing, not photography, not anything else. Just, plain and simple, the art of story telling.
For some reason it is a thankless thing in the world to be a good story-teller. There are awards constituted, big names like the Booker Prize, or the Oscars, but no one really cares about how well a story is told. All the world cares about is just the way you leave hidden meanings, for example, or how you extoll a burning issue, or, well, how well you manage to confuse the audience(!)
But people don't pick up novels or watch movies to think and ponder. Many a times whole novels are made and whole movies are shot keeping in mind that fictitious personality who is sitting in a library, wearing half-moon glasses and writing pages about how the hero represents a man in conflict with so and so and how this and how that while he watches a movie or reads a novel. Most often, however, the real life character comes from work, falls on the sofa, loosens his tie and switches on his TV. Or lies down in his bed, switches on the nightlamp, and picks up a novel. You read a novel not to know and understand, but,most often, to be entertained.
So, what makes a good story? There are, basically, three aspects to a story, or so I believe. One is what the story is about, in its most coarse-grained form. Is it a love story? An adventure? A fantasy? This is the thing that first ignites in the mind of the writer or the movie maker. When Douglas Adams thought of the Hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy he didn't think up the entire compendium in one go. It probably started with a seed, an impression perhaps, of how the novel would feel. This seed must be of the best quality. You must know, and trust that what you have in mind is truly beautiful, or awe inspiring. You cannot start with a routine, bottomless thought and expect it to become beautiful.
Next comes how the story is constructed. Who are the characters? What kind of people are they? Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca scores heavily on this account. That story couldn't, just couldn't have been written with any characters other than what Maurier chose. Recently I watched Johny Gaddar. The film seemed totally flat, and this was the reason why. They had a good story, but never gave any thought to the way the story should flow. The amount of time they had to delve on a particular event. The kind of people they were talking about.
Last, but not the least comes the manner in which it is told. Is the writing too fast? Too slow? Too complex? Is the background too dark? Is the music inappropriate? The idea behind any story must be to involve the reader, to completely immerse her in your story. If in the middle of the narrative she wakes up and realises that the song wasn't good enough, there. Your story is gone. It isn't worth the effort. Yann Martel in his Life of Pi writes in such a simple but vivid manner that you don't even realise that the story is too fantastic to be true. That's how it should be. Fiction that looks like the truth.
That's all I'd like to preach my friends! Sermon over! But before I close: I think the motive behind a good story is to give the audience an alternate reality, a separate life. If at the end of the story a guy has not forgotten his wife's birthday , then all the above notwithstanding, the story is, really, a bad story.

Life is beautiful - a poem

We sit here in our rooms
Wonder what has happened today
That the sweetest of our dreams
Has been ruthlessly brushed away
What will happen? We, afraid, ask
How, pray, will we live anymore
It is death that awaits our knock
And far away sits distraught hope
Outside, like a feather let go
Snow falls softly from the sky
And , silent, so as not to disturb,
Alights like a tear on the eyes of a bride
The sun, mellowed to a distant white
Lets the clouds take it away
And, from behind the shy veil
Watches the day take its shape

Do you think the world outside
Cares for the pain you clutch so close?
Do you think that God above
Gives a care for this sorrow?
Do you think the waves at sea
Will fall silent to let you cry?
Do you think the rains will cease
When you look up to the sky?
Behold, my friend, the snow that falls
The skies that, calm, perform this feat
Care not for the coming end
For the millions of tears that you weep
The mountains that stand, sentinels of the land
Care not for the shivering cold
But instead for the moment of grace
When God himself drapes them with snow
The birds that fly give not a damn
For the chains that hold you down
But only that, wing or not,
They may soar high above the ground
The sun neither loves nor hates
The night that subtly darkness brings
For all it cares is, at its birth,
That it gives the koel heart to sing
The flowers that adorn the gardens
The trees that grow large and tall
Live in bliss at the height of spring
And have no worry about the fall
All the world in this moment now
In the beauty of God does so rejoice
And must it be tears that wet your eyes
When all around you is heavenly joy?
Behold, open your eyes, my friend
What you grieve is not your own
But this, this world, these skies, the breeze
The snow that so adorns
The birds that sing, the flowers that bloom
The million sights that rush your eyes
The flood of joy that drowns you through
And screams the truth of being alive:
Life, my friend, is not just pain
Not merely a wait till death
It is a frenzied, passionate dream,
A flight of fancy before we rest.

Moonlight - a story

There goes the wind again.
It doesn't howl, like it used to when he still lived here, about a year ago. It is subdued, as if it can guess that everything has come to an end. Can you read my thoughts, wind?
The house has been decorated lavishly, and so has the tent in the park in front, its pink cloth a mismatch in the black night. The light is too gaudy, the colours burn the eye; perhaps the occasion is not as joyous as the decor makes it out to be. But that, of course, was another matter.
Suddenly the sluice gates are open, and the memories flood through. Don't you ever stop? he screams inwardly, but they are already there, battering his eyes and ears.

He was sixteen when his mother remarried. His father then had been dead six years, or may be seven, and his grandmother had been prodding her daughter an equal amount of time to get another husband; the poor child needed a father. She died early, though, his grandmother; of a heart attack when he was thirteen.
Since then his family consisted only of his mother, and she became his friend, philosopher and guide. Everyday after school he would come and stand by the threshold of the kitchen, and while by the dusky sunlight his mother cooked he would tell her everything that was happening in his life, down to the minutest detail. Between them there were no pretenses of secrecy, no barriers of formality. He spoke freely to her, of everything from his new physics teacher to the war in Iraq to even his first crush. She would listen patiently, even during power cuts when in the darkness sweat ran down her face and down her side; occasionally she would advise her son, but it was never a binding, never a command, just words meant to help him through.
But then, almost overnight, everything changed. His mother did tell him about the marriage though. In the moonlight, watching him carefully to see his reaction, she told him that she was going to marry again, because he needed a father, and she could not carry on so on her own. To his mind then, it seemed like a dream; he could not fathom how any of this would change his family, he still pictured his mother talking to him as she was now, freely, with no walls in between. But of course, everything did change; when the stranger came into the house and began to live with them, Vinay realised his entire family had been torn away from him, torn away brutally. Every day now he would go to the kitchen again and try to talk, but in the presence of this alien man, their conversations became false, unreal, forced. It seemed as if they were in a play and this man was their audience, and follow the script or the audience will know. Half in anger, half in bewilderment he withdrew into himself, stopped talking to anyone but himself, and for most of the time he was at home he would stay locked in his room, pretending to study, for there was nothing else he could do.
This man who was now his father had a daughter too. Her name was Nikita. He knew because he had known her before; after all, they had lived in the same colony. She was a year younger to him. She boarded her school bus from the same stop as he, and over the years he had established enough of an acquaintance with her to wave a greeting whenever he saw her. Now, however, she was in it too, and he no longer knew her. When they went to school now, together because they lived in the same house, they scarcely talked, walking silently and standing apart. Sometimes, of course, he felt this was wrong, that it wasn't her mistake, that after all she was now his sister, but the thought brought with it so much pain and confusion that he let it go, and vowed never to think about it again.
His mother of course was worried by her son's behaviour, and it wasn't infrequently that she tried to draw him into a conversation. But every conversation, with either his mother or the stranger, sounded so farcical, so forced to him, that try as he might he could not help feeling that this was a different family altogether, not his at all; and in the night as he lay staring at the ceiling he wondered if this was the same house he had lived in for the past several years, and whether this was the same bed he had lain in and slept a peaceful sleep.
This affair continued for several months on end, with him alone and apart from the rest of the family, and then it happened.
The accident.
That night his mother had gone with her new husband to a wedding. He himself had stayed back on the pretext of studying, for he was in no mood of engaging in any form of celebration. At the time the call came he was switching channels on television with no intention whatsoever of watching, and Nikita, who had stayed back too, was in the kitchen fixing herself some lemonade. The phone rang, its jarring note annoying in the dull boredom of the night, and Nikita, glass in hand, went to pick it up.
A few words later she froze.
With a rising sense of foreboding he walked to her and took the reciever from her. The voice at the other end was still recounting the incident. “....They were taken to the Central hospital...and there they declared them dead on arrival...” He let the voice complete, then asked what had happened. His mother and her husband had been travelling to the wedding when a drunken truck driver had rammed his truck into them. His mother had died instantly. Her husband had died on the way to the hospital.
As Vinay replaced the receiver he searched his feelings for any hint of sorrow. There was none. He willed himself to cry, but no tears came. He willed himself to scream out aloud, but his voice was clear and calm. As Nikita, standing in front of him, fell on her knees with a long wail, Vinay realised with terror that somewhere down the line he had lost the mother he had so dearly loved, but his heart somehow was frozen into ice.


Ahead of him a frail old woman stands greeting the guests, and on seeing him, she turns this way and jostles towards him, and a few kids tag along.
“Oh, Vinay beta! You have finally come! Nikita has been waiting for you so long! She was worried that you wouldn't come....”
“How could I not come, grandma?” he asks rhetorically, a part of him wondering whether he should call her grandma; after all she was Nikita's grandmother. But he lets the question pass, fade away into space.
“It was Nikita's engagement.”
His words let go a million emotions in his heart, but he stifles each one of them, one by one. Why? A part of his mind asks and the question floats free, a soap bubble coloured in a thousand myriad colours. Why? it asks again, but of course he knows.....

After the accident, Nikita's grandparents took them under their wing. Vinay initially repulsed the idea, for to him, they were no more than strangers, but they were content with leaving him to himself, and did not mind his staying silent and not talking to them. So he stayed in their house, but not as part of their family; apart, as if he were a paying guest at their house.
With Nikita the sorrow of the tragedy was still large. Most of the time she would sit silently, staring into space, her lips pursed tightly as if to contain the grief, or fury, within. Her eyes stayed puffed and red from the constant crying, and it was not infrequently that she broke out crying, or started off into a series of sobs. Sometimes when he walked past her room, he would hear her sobbing quietly, or see her head buried in the pillow as if she was trying to stifle herself. Her grandparents tried to console her, of course, but Vinay thought that hers were wounds that would heal not by any cajoling, but by the gently lapping waves of time.
Vinay, however, remained, on the outside at least, untouched by the tragedy, or so he thought. Often he would see Nikita crying and wonder why, why he stayed so numb, why he couldn't feel for his mother as Nikita felt for her father. In the dead of the night, however, as he slept he would stand by the kitchen threshold again, and his mother would be standing by the stove with his back to him. But through the window would come not the red sunlight of the dusk but the icy silver of the moon, and he would talk and talk but his mother wouldn't respond, till when she would turn and the moonlight would reveal a corpse, and another standing by her side.
One day, perhaps a fortnight after the accident, Vinay went and sat on the stairs. The house faced a park that was almost treeless, with a few low-rise buildings beyond, so that when all over the city it was already dusk the red sun still shone into the house, and it was this sun Vinay watched as it continued its slow, leisurely path into the bowels of the earth. Across its face flitted a flock of birds, and Vinay wondered how they could fly, how they could let go so easily, when he was so bound in chains. He closed his eyes and tried to fly with the birds, forget his worries, forget the past that he was to be sad about, and tried to feel the wind rush through him and cleanse the soul within. Somewhere a koel sang, and Vinay let his heart sing with the koel, the past, present and future be damned.
The door behind him opened, and footsteps hesitated, then walked out. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Nikita come and sit by his side. Immediately Vinay felt awkward; he felt he was invading her moment of solitude. Perhaps he should get up and go. But she didn’t seem to mind him, so he stayed, and continued to stare into the dusk. But then, there came the sound of sharp breaths, and Vinay realized she had started crying again, her head resting on her knees, and her hair falling ahead so he couldn’t see her face.
Vinay wondered what to do. A part of him wanted to walk away, something he had done for the past several days, and indeed for the past several months. Yet something inside him said that the girl beside him must mean something to him: if not as a sister then at least as a compatriot in tragedy. He tried to look ahead into the dusk again, ignoring both the voices, but somehow the scene had lost its appeal; Nikita’s sobs sounded surprisingly clear in his ears, and somewhere pierced his heart.
“I can understand how you feel”, he said, wondering if that counted as consolation. Apparently it didn’t, for Nikita turned her head at him and looked at him with venom, as if he had run a sword through her deepest wounds. Vinay turned towards the dusk again, and for a minute or so, silence prevailed, broken only by Nikita’s sobs. Then he started again.
“Some things have happened”, he began, and wondered how stupid his statement must sound. “Things over which neither you nor I had any control. Maybe…maybe you don’t want to listen to me. Maybe I am interfering….and you see me as a stranger perhaps….I don’t know.” He had said all this staring at the floor, and presently he turned to face Nikita. She was looking at him now, and though she had stopped sobbing, in her eyes he could see the tears poised, waiting to come out. He spoke carefully now, looking at her, as if his words were the gospel, and had it in them to make or break her heart. “True, I haven’t spoken to you for so long now….And you are probably wondering why I am suddenly warming up….But…as I said, things have happened….And I have seen you crying so often…..And in so much pain…..I ….I wonder if I can help…” With that, he stopped abruptly and stared stupidly at her eyes. He wondered what she thought of this little eloquence, this nonsensical monologue. Perhaps he had made some sense after all: Nikita looked at him thoughtfully, then averted her eyes and looked at the floor, silent.
They stayed like this for a few moments, she staring at the floor, he looking at her, waiting for her to respond. Around them night had finally taken hold, and the clouds and the sky above were drenched in the lustrous violet of the fresh night, except for a thin strip of grey-blue at the very end of the western horizon, where the dying sun threw off its final few rays of light.
Vinay found himself looking at the sky and wondering, wondering if the relationship between them had in any way improved. He turned and looked at Nikita again. Perhaps she wouldn’t answer. Perhaps there really was nothing to answer. He sighed and got up, and with a final look at the young night sky, turned to leave.
“Vinay”, Nikita called out, when he had reached the door. She was looking at him now, and Vinay noticed she had stopped crying. “It is okay to cry.”
That night, as he slept, he saw his dream again, saw his mother again as a corpse, and as so many times before, got up in a cold sweat. Then he lay back again, staring at the ceiling, letting his mind work its way slowly into reality. Over the walls the silvery moonlight threw weird shadows of a tree, and as it swayed to and fro in an unseen wind he saw the dream again, and saw his mother, talked to her as he had in the past few years. “It is okay to cry”, she had said, and the tears came today; at first a solitary one that lay poised over his cheek, afraid that it would fall down and shatter his composure, but then like the summer rains they came, and flowed easily and freely, washing down his sorrow, washing down his grief and dissolving all those chains in which he had kept himself bound, unconsciously, for so long. The voice inside him that had stayed silent for so long now screamed in agony, screamed that he had lost his mother, lost his mother whom he had loved so dearly, and it was his mother, it was his loss, and of course, goddamnit, it was okay to cry.
For several moments he pressed his face into the pillow and let himself out, let his sorrow speak its full. He did not know how much he cried that night; for all he knew, it could have been a few minutes, it could have been an hour. But he did know that somewhere the shackles had been broken, somewhere a river now flowed free and easy, and the grey clouds that had stifled so earlier had broken into rain. In a way that he would never be able to fathom, that night finally let him shut down the tragedy and opened the gates to joy. And that night, as he lay sobbing in the moonlight, Vinay finally understood Nikita's sorrow, and his heart went out to her.

“Where is Nikita?” he asks the old lady, and is in turn led, on cue, by one of the children tailing her, into the house. It is a festive atmosphere in the house, and everyone who is of any substance at all is either carrying things up and down or flashing smiles to the guests. There are a lot of people whom he does not know, and Vinay wonders again whether this is indeed his own family, whether he is not just an idle man coming to his office colleague's wedding. But of course, Nikita was different.
Upstairs, and into a small room Vinay recognises instantly as Nikita's, though in this night of celebration it looks surprisingly alien. There are a score or so women in the room, all huddled around the mirror, and in the centre sits Nikita, subdued as the women decide for her what she should wear; it sounds strange to Vinay, for after all this is just an engagement, but then he is unfamiliar with women's devices. So he stands by the side, waiting for Nikita to see him.
Nikita sees him, and for an instant her face lights up. But then, of course, she knows it all and she falls back into her languor, though she still stares at him from the mirror. In the commotion, they just look at each other; they are too familiar with each other's thoughts to say anything.
Soon however, the ladies notice him in the room, and a fuss ensues. He looks at Nikita as a couple of girls take it upon themselves to flirt with him, but the moonlight is too bright today, and it reveals everything. He would so very want not to see the truth.

Next morning, Vinay made it a point to greet Nikita in the same way he had done before all this had happened. As she came down for breakfast, he gave her his traditional bow-of-the-head and flick-of-the-wrist greeting. For a moment she stared at him, alarmed, then, somewhat embarrassed, returned his greeting with a nod. No matter, Vinay thought to himself. He had created this rift, it was his then to build the bridges.
Nikita had completed her boards two months ago, and was now studying in the same college as he. Which meant, of course that they would travel together, in the same bus.
When he sat beside her in the bus that day, he sat erect, looking straight ahead, as if he were the new guy in school facing up to the headmaster. It wasn't that he had always felt this uncomfortable; two days ago, he would have given her a massive cold shoulder. Today was different, of course, for as the bus picked on momentum, and Nikita turned to the window to look at the city pass by (or perhaps to avoid him, but it didn't matter), he tried very hard to wreck his brain for some topic of conversation. None came, of course, and with an inward curse at himself, he began, “What all courses do you have now?”
Nikita looked at him, surprised the question had been aimed at her. Then she frowned, thinking. “Hmm....we have a Physics course, and a Mathematics one, and there is also something to do with Electronics. And we also have to do English this sem. There are a couple more, the one on....wait...oh yeah, basic computer science and another on chemistry.” Her answer over, and silence again, as she looked out of the window, and he looked straight ahead. An old lady climbed the bus and sat in the seat in front of him, her slow movements irritating the impatient passengers of the bus. He wondered if, fifty years down the line, when he and Nikita were as old as this lady, they would still find it so difficult to talk to each other.
“There is this professor, who teaches us physics. His name is Saha, I think. Do you know what kind of a prof he is?” Nikita asked. She had turned fully towards him, and in her manner Vinay saw no hint of any reluctance or hesitation.
“Ah. Saha”, he replied, forcing a smile, “He's an item, that one. And he has a very absurd sense of humour. He will start laughing at that precise moment when you realise you don't understand what is going on. Once, he was taking a class on the general theory of relativity, and everybody is looking at him with rapt attention, trying to note down every word he says. And in the middle of an equation, he digresses, and goes out of the way to comment on a student's hair, and laughs out aloud. But the interesting point is that none of the students realise that he has moved away from the topic, and it is not until he has stopped laughing and started to teach again that one student, one solitary guy, recognises the joke and laughs out aloud.”
Nikita smiled at the anecdote, though he knew it wasn't so funny. Her smile, though, was free and easy, and Vinay realised that this was the first time she had smiled, in all these months. A current of joy ran through his body on seeing her joy, fleeting though it was, and a part of his mind cursed him for denying her this trifling moment of happiness for so long.
As she looked out of the window again, he realised that, for her part, she had talked freely enough, that she had erected no walls of formality between them. At this thought, he relaxed. True, she had talked to him as she would have talked to a stranger, but he knew that even that meant she had put behind her a lot of things: the remarriage, the accident, the loss of her father. Perhaps he would forever remain a stranger to her, perhaps all their conversations would be only this long, but he took heart in the fact that she did not repulse him, she did not avoid him completely, and that there was fertile ground in which the first seeds of friendship could be sown.
Those, perhaps, were the first steps taken that day, and slowly, but steadily, the bond between the two of them grew. Living as they did together, they couldn't but help running into each other; and it is often the case that a few run-ins is all that is required for friendships to blossom. With Vinay and Nikita, however, there also was a common tragedy that in some way held them together, although it fell like a shadow over their hearts. Their friendship, then, grew not as much out of the trifling conversations and the small talk they had on the way to the college, or over lunch or dinner, but more out of the moments they spent together, when, as one sat morose and sobbed softly, the other would come and sit by the side. They would just sit together, silent, for both of them knew that sorrow does not so much get extinguished as it dies out on its own, and while it does that, it is helpful sometimes to have someone by your side who knows your sorrow, who can feel the bleeding of your heart. In those moments that they spent, not talking, maybe crying, or maybe looking out into the moon, they would not wonder about each other, and yet they would, somewhere deep in their heart which knew that it was not alone. It was in those moments that the faintest of threads began to grow between them, the threads of trust, confidence, friendship.
They did come out of their grief, though, but they came out with the treasure of a new-found relationship glimmering in their hearts. The bond between them had been made and perfected over sorrow, but now it blossomed in their joy, as every moment, every hour they found free they began to spend with each other. In the journey to and from college they would talk profusely, talk of all that had happened with them, all that was worth discussing and all that was not so worth discussing. They confided in each other freely, they trusted each other blindly, and they enjoyed each other's company. Once when Vinay managed to escape flunking his exams, they did the most insane things possible that evening, rushing to the roof of their college and screaming out abuses aloud, and then dining at an expensive restaurant where, having squandered all their pocket money, they had to hitch a ride home from a bewildered old man in an ancient Maruti 800.
Often during the nights Vinay would lie on his bed thinking of Nikita. In a surprising turn of events, somehow, his life had come to revolve around her. Every trifling thing that gave him joy was in some way linked to her. Yet there was something, somewhere, that worried his heart. It eluded him, this little worry of his, but it was growing, and he did not know what it was. But pure joy has a way of muting your senses, drowning you in its flow, and even in those nights that this shadow passed across his heart, it would not be long before the memory of the moments that they had spent together that day would overwhelm him again, and he would drift into sleep, contented, satisfied, and peaceful at heart.

It is time.
The ladies have all gone away; only Nikita and he himself are in the room. Through the mirror she looks at him. Her eyes are wide, beautiful, but the maskara makes them look extravagant, almost indecent. He remembers her smile, toothy and jovial, but today with the lipstick on her lips are closed shut, unhappy. Her face, which he always thought was radiant, has been effused with so much powder and makeup it looks artificial. She is not beautiful today, he realises. A pang of guilt pierces his heart. Must she be?
For a moment images flash through his mind again. Nikita sitting on the stairway and crying. Nikita sobbing gently as she slept. Nikita in a restaurant, laughing aloud at a joke he had told, and he admiring the light in her eyes and the joy in her face. And now this.
She gets up to go, and without looking at him, turns towards the door. He doesn't stop her; he has no right to. It is her engagement today, he reminds himself, and tries to be happy, but of course he can't. It is her engagement today, and his blood turns a freezing fire as it flows through his veins.
Nikita is the best sister in the world, he tells himself aloud.
Who are you lying to, Vinay?

Two years and he had passed out of college, and was struggling for a job. He found one six months later, in an IT firm in Bangalore. Time flew by, and very soon the day when he was to leave, forever, because he had to live and work there, was upon them.
That day Nikita was so upset she refused to come out of her room. With his luggage in hand Vinay stood at her door, waiting, hoping that she would come out and wish him goodbye. She mattered a lot to him now; she was one of the few people in this world he held this close to his heart, and today, as she sat behind the door, he could not but help feel a growing despair welling up inside him. He knocked the door, but she did not open. He called out that he was leaving, but she did not reply. He pictured her in his mind, lying down on her bed and crying into her pillow, and he willed her to open the door, willed her to talk to him one last time, at least to say goodbye. But the wooden door in front remained steadfastly closed. He gave out a sigh that as if took the life out of him, and, with one last forlorn look at the steadfastly closed door, turned and left.
The next six months to him were agony. True, he and Nikita had been friends for about two years now, but this was the first time he realised how much she meant to him. Suddenly, with no one to confide in, no one to share his stupid anecdotes with, life seemed dull, a dreary desert with no oasis of emotion. Every night, and every day, whenever he would be free, his mind would wander off to Nikita, search for her around, and then sit down dejected. He relived all those moments he had been with Nikita, but this time out of sorrow, this time out of longing. His hand yearned for her touch, his eyes yearned to see her smile. And in those days, Vinay realised the tiny worry that had been nagging him at the back of his mind for so long: it was this, this strange storm that now ravaged the landscape of his heart.
He phoned her of course, often, every day, initially, but then every week. But she would either not pick up the phone or reply that she was busy, that she couldn't talk. Fine, he told himself; if she does not wish to talk to him, nor does he wish to talk to her. But that was a lie of course, and it only made him think of her even more, made him even more morose, nostalgic, sad. He waited for her, waited for her to call, or speak, or visit him one last time; he prayed to God to see her smile one final time, to send him that one last glimpse of her that he would clutch to his heart till he died.
She came of course, and one evening when he came back home he saw her standing near the guard's room just outside the colony. She stood looking at the sky, her frame silhouetted in the moonlight; he touched her on her shoulder and she turned, and looked at him, into his eyes.
That moment there froze in time, and it was as if he had looked into her eyes for all eternity. He looked into her eyes now as she sat on the stairs, telling him that it was okay to cry. He looked into her eyes as she sat in the bus, asking him about her physics teacher. He looked into her eyes as they sat in a cafe, sharing a joke about a common friend. And he looked into her eyes as they were now, wet, black, wide, the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen or would ever want to see. Somewhere something broke, and the dreams of a million nights shaped themselves in his mind, the thoughts of a million lifetimes when he had sat thinking about the moments he had spent with Nikita, when he had sat relishing her joy and his own, when he had sat with love buried deep in his heart. She had never been his sister, she had never been his friend; in that few moments that they spent staring at each other, the moonlight revealed everything, brought them to themselves, showed them the truth that blossomed so in their hearts, showed them the truth that was as beautiful as anything they could have imagined, and more beautiful than anything they could have imagined.
In a trance they made their way to the lift, pressed the button for the fourth floor. They got out, he opened the door, all this time not neither looking into the other's eyes, for they knew what they would find, they knew what was going to happen.
They entered the apartment and stood facing each other, the moon and the stars visible through a window by the side, the rest of the room plunged in darkness. Vinay looked into her eyes as she looked at his, and in the moonlight saw her eyes, wide, gentle, her eyelashes as they bobbed up and down when she blinked, like waves breaking on a calm sea shore, her hair as they fell straight over her shoulders, their feathery blackness glistening in the pale light, her lips as they shimmered. He stepped up to her, held her in his arms. She did not resist. Then he bent down and put his lips on hers, a light kiss, no more. His mind screamed, a million questions, a hundred clouds thundered over his heart, but thought was nowhere today, there was just this feeling, deep within, that bliss was right here, right now, and its name was Nikita.
He kissed her again on the lips. Her lips did not respond, but she didn't push him away either. His own stood poised there, his mind still short circuiting, but what was to happen had already happened; he bent and kissed her again, and this time she responded, her lips wet and passionate on his own. Suddenly Vinay found himself drenched in ecstasy, his heart singing a million songs, raising itself into an octave he had never thought it could reach. He closed his eyes, let himself drown himself in her, let his lips take him to what had been paradise for so very long, and let his eyes see a million Nikitas; Nikita in the bed, crying, Nikita beside him on the bus, Nikita through closed doors and Nikita now. There was only one sight:Nikita, only one fragrance: Nikita, there was only one feeling: Nikita, and there was only one truth: Nikita, and in the realisation he revelled her touch, lived her, and lived her a million times.
The night watched silently as they made love that night, not remembering the past, nor caring for the future, for the joy of the present was paradise itself. The moon came out of its veil of clouds to look upon them, to witness the one emotion that was divine. Far away crows crowed and dogs barked, and deep down the city squirmed and slithered in its gaudy light, but here was heaven, here was eternity, and here were two souls merged into one.
She stayed with him for the next week, and those days they lived not as friends but as lovers, in each other’s arms, in each other’s hearts. Their relationship hadn't changed; even when they had sat, almost a year ago, over a cup of coffee in the canteen, it was love that had blossomed in their hearts, and it was love that blossomed now. Neither heaven, nor earth, seemed to give them as much ecstasy as did each other's company, as did the touch of his hand or the feel of her hair. The prelude of five years culminated now in those few days of sheer elation; heaven as if had chosen their hearts to descend.
She had to leave then, and in the station they stood looking at each other while all around people hustled and jostled to get into the train. The train hooted once, and the jostling increased, and several passengers gave them irritated looks: they were standing in the way. But they were oblivious to it all. They stared into each other's eyes, remembering the nights past, living again their love. Hoot! the train cried again, and Nikita picked up her small suitcase absently. Then on impulse she hugged him, and he hugged her in turn, feeling her feathery black hair ruffle in his face. Then they kissed, for that one last time with the same overwhelming passion, on each other's lips, not caring that all around them people were staring, half with wonder, half with disgust. Goodbye, Nikita, he whispered in her ear, and let his heart soar into the sky one last time.

Nikita had called a month later, frantic that her grandparents were looking for a groom, so what should we do now? Of course, Vinay couldn't do anything. We have to let go, Nikita. Ours is not going to be. It would be impossible for me to marry you. Marry the boy your grandparents choose for you. The arguments had been heated of course, but Vinay knew that there was only this far their love could go. Someday, Nikita would have to marry, and she will have to realise that there are some people you just cannot fall in love with.
A card had then come some time later informing him of Nikita's engagement. He had torn away the card, not out of sorrow but out of anger, anger that Nikita hadn't cared to talk to him. Talk to you? Oh, come on.
He stands here now, in the park under the tent, and whatever little ceremony there is is in full swing. The people have all gathered around the centre, where Nikita's grandfather, now so old his cheekbones jut out like cliffs jutting out of the water, proceeds to announce the engagement. He then hands the mike over to Nikita's uncle, a roly-poly affair with a balding head that sparkles in the light. He cracks a few jokes, but of course Vinay can't hear them from here. He doesn't want to hear either; there is sufficient noise in his own mind to listen too.
Five years ago, perhaps, he would never have thought that things would come to such a pass. When he had sat on the stairs that fateful evening, he had never bargained for all the happiness and joy that Nikita had given him. Perhaps it would have been better if he had never talked to her. Perhaps it would have been better if the flames of love had never lapped the walls of his heart. Perhaps, but it was over now. There would be wounds to cleanse, souls to mend, but it would heal. Time would heal all.
But then the images come again, this time with brutal force. Nikita on the stairs, lying on her bed, talking to him, laughing with him, speaking of a million joys and woes, Nikita, Nikita, Nikita, Nikita. Her face swam around him in dewy circles in the light, her voice called out to him from the stars and the moon, her fragrance drifted from the flowers in the gardens of heaven. His eyes filled with tears at the thoughts of her, for though he might have tried to convince himself a million times that all would heal, he knew it would not. He knew that he would love Nikita for all eternity. He knew that this engagement was but the first nail in his coffin, the coffin in which he will be buried alive. And in a surprising clarity of thought he realised that this marriage could not, should not happen.
No, this marriage will not happen.
He noticed that everyone was looking at him now, staring at him. Perhaps he had said something aloud.
“What do you mean, Vinay?” asked Nikita's uncle, an edge to his voice. Vinay walked forward, into the merry crowd that had suddenly lost its mirth.
“This marriage cannot happen.”
“Why?” came the question, and Vinay imagined a guillotine around his neck. Dissent and you shall die.
“Because”, he began, mustering courage, “She is in love with another.” He looked at Nikita, and in her eyes he saw relief, and joy, and for the first time this evening he realised that she was beautiful, was always beautiful. She reached out and grabbed his hand, and pressed it. A tiny splurge of joy ran through his sickened veins, sick no more.
“Who? Who is she in love with?” Nikita's uncle was asking. But Vinay was looking at her eyes, at her wide eyes with their black pupils that looked like deep whirpools. They conveyed lifetimes to him, and even as the people around them watched with unabashed curiosity, Vinay pulled Nikita towards him and held her in a strong embrace. They stood like that for an eternity, or so it seemed to him, she burying herself in his chest, he feeling her hair brush gently against his face, each feeling somehow complete in the other's arms. The world outside, of course, stood waiting for an answer, but Vinay took his time, looking into Nikita's eyes as he spoke, his voice, though merely a whisper, echoing throughout the silent crowd.
“With me”, he said, and Nikita smiled, a solitary tear flowing down her cheek. He smiled too, and they both cried, because it was all over, because it did not matter, because in their hearts the sun was shining and paradise was restored. The crowd around looked into each other's faces, the groom, and the rest of the family stared at them alarmed. But high above the moon went on with the night, and through its thin veil of clouds looked upon the world, wondered how love could blossom in the murky waters of humankind, and smiled for them both, smiled for Vinay and Nikita, and through its pearly moonlight wished them the best of eternity.
“She is in love with me.”






Endnote -I don't think I can claim fully the credit for the idea for this story - it derives, more or less, from an ancient newspaper clipping that said that some celebrity had sued some lawyer for alleging that she had fathered a child with her own step brother.
When I read the news at first, I found it shocking. How can you hook up with your own step-brother? I asked. But when those initial waves of shock and alarm began to fade away, I realised it wasn't such an abominable idea after all. I have a tendency to look down upon romantic relations within the family, as most other people have, I am sure. But is a step-brother/step-sister relation really a familial tie? Or is it something that is forced upon us by the society? Is it something like those boundaries that we like to draw around ourselves, blatant fissures that prevent us from joining hands, that prevent those purest of pure threads of love from crystallizing?I wondered. And in a flash, this story was upon me, whole, almost exactly as it appears here. I was so stunned by the beauty of the thought I found it difficult to study for my exam, which was the next day (it goes without saying that I screwed it). When I actually sat down to write it, I found my writing prowess not quite upto the job. I had to rewrite it thrice before I could be satisfied, but even then, this piece of writing comes nowhere close to that sheer beauty that dropped like a meteor onto my head.

Remember - a poem

Shadows speak, the nights whisper
They say to me, let's try to remember
In hushed voices like the sounds of doom
They pierce like bullets into my gloom

I shiver, I cower by the lamp by my side
I shrink from the darkness, I shelter in the light
I don't want to, I scream out aloud
But no amount of shouting can drown the voices out

They come, they sweep, they take it all away
They clutch hard my hand and bring me another day
When scarcely crying I let go of a hand
My eyes rigid, my face a sculpture of sand.

And why, pray, do they show me her face?
Why must I feel again her imploring gaze?
Why must I be forced to see the tears wet her eyes?
Why must I be forced to hear the pain in her voice?

They are acid to me, those images I say
I don't need to remember, throw it all away.
But the voices don't stop, nor do the sights cease
She looks back with a sorrow that seeks to burn and freeze

And sitting by the lamp so afraid of the night
A part of me is solemn; indeed I did all right
But something else entirely does my heart speak -
"That day, you rascal, you burned a part of me!"

Life is beautiful

I would have liked to talk about me, about what I like or don’t like, what I do and so on and so forth. But no, not today. Today it can’t be about me. Today, it must be about Him. God. And Life.
Right now, I am sitting in a closed room, with only a small window to my back, that opens not to the open skies as I would have liked, but just to the garden in our colony. But the sights, the sounds, the fragrances are still fresh in my memory, burning brightly with an inextinguishable flame. I so very dearly hope they will burn forever. You don’t chance upon God so often.
Imagine. You are walking on a road that you traverse often, more like everyday. You are alone, or maybe with a friend. You are engrossed in your thoughts as you often are; life in recent days has been pretty hectic for you.
There is a gentle wind, not warm as is expected for this time of the year. Not cold either. It just is, a soft hand caressing your cheeks, soft lips kissing your brow. You don’t notice it at first, you hardly notice the weather: what more is it than just a noisy television playing in the background? But then, ahead you see a tree. The tree is flowering, little yellow flowers that you never found beautiful, that you in fact considered disgusting in the sweltering heat of the summer. But today they have acquired a strange charm. Today, the wind lifts them out of their home, out of the tree that they so serenely drape, and blows them around in the gentlest of swirls. You look at the scene and wonder. In those flowers, little yellow petals that seem shapeless and formless, you imagine you see a princess. You see a princess, smiling, draped in yellow, borne on the wind, playing with it, entwined in it. You see in that scene a glimpse of joy, pure, unadulterated joy that for a moment cruises through your veins like the sweetest of nectars, that swims in your head like the most enduring of dreams. It is gone, of course, for you have tripped over a stone; but wait, dear friend, for there is bound to be more.
Later in the evening, you are going home, swept along in that mundane drudgery of the city they call traffic, thinking nothing, seeing nothing. But today, my friend, you are going to lose yourself. For today, God has taken out his canvas, taken out his paintbrush. For today, God is going to paint.
The sky is overcast, or at least has been so for the past several hours. It is gray, the dull, steely gray that seems to mock the summer, threatening to wash it off in one single burst of rain. But now, the first shafts of sunlight pierce through the clouds; the sun, in its dying moments, will breathe one last breath of pure gold. Suddenly in a patch there, right ahead, or maybe slightly to the right, there has emerged a patch of blue. And no, it is no ordinary blue, it is flushed, it is the freshest, the most eternal blue you could ever know. That patch of blue, then, is bounded on its sides by little wisps of cloud: gray and white, they intermingle among themselves like tiny little tendrils growing into one another. They bring up in the sky a landscape almost as detailed as that on earth. There, there is a mountain, a peak of gray cloud, capped on the top by a wisp of white. There, then is a valley; if you strain your eyes, perhaps you can see a thin river of blue running through it. And perhaps that little strand there is a coast: a cliff jutting out to sea. You look at the sky, and little by little, you forget where you are. You are no longer here, in a Delhi traffic jam, you are there, among those clouds, around you their snowy fluffiness, and you hold in your hands little fluffy blobs of whitish gray smoke. You twirl it around, and it becomes a thin strand of rain, falling to the earth. You blow it out, and it becomes a veil of cloud, to drape the moon yet to come. You run, you walk, you fly, for in this world everything is possible; for in this world reality has melted in your hands.
And then you turn your gaze a little lower, and are aghast. Above you the clouds were gray-black, silently but firmly trying to restrain the sky, and the sun, but near the horizon, they have given way. And there stands the sun, like a bride parting the curtains, looking at her groom and blushing. There she is, brilliant yellow, the most priceless gold on earth, and around her that fitful yellow-orange glow, as if she has set fire to the sky. But no, the fire is not violent, for the light is gentle, the flame more like that of a candle, striving to light, yet too shy to push away the fatherly clouds that surround her, so that color dissolves into color, and like two hands holding each other, like two souls so different and yet so alike coming together, the sun unites with the clouds, the day unites with the night, so that the horizon ahead is that soothing, divine mix of an ancient gray, and a mature yellow that strikes at your heart, that shuts down every single thought that you might care to think. For what must you think, brother, it is all up ahead, the greatest painting, the greatest poem, the greatest song all rolled into one, right ahead of you, and it has all been created only, only for you. You look at it, and look, and look, and look, through the trees, between the buildings, from your balcony, every moment relishing it, every moment feeling contented that you are here, just here, even if here is a mundane house on a mundane road in a mundane city, for God is playing out to you. And as you turn away, the scene etched in your memory, you whisper, as if anything loud will break the spell – Life is beautiful.

The Window - a story

The Window

I saw her first in the summer of ’99, a month or so, that is, before I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I must not say “diagnosed”, or so my psychiatrist tells me, it seems too “medicinal” a word. Perhaps I should say they discovered I was insane; the kind of thought that has the mild flavor of insanity that every self-respecting madman should possess.
But again, I wasn’t delusional, or something like that. I know, I know. I can almost see you shaking your head. What a pity! The poor guy! No, I wasn’t at that stage just yet. Not that stark raving insanity that people actually call madness; just a little off the hook. A little cuckoo, as my friend says. Meaning that I did carry about with my daily life as normal people carry out, but I was a little prone to, you know, imagining things. Whispers. People. Sometimes even plots and controversy.
But her , she was real, more real perhaps than anything or anyone I saw around me. Much of my life during that time was a vague mist of uncertainty, a foggy veil which would occasionally resolve into a familiar face, a well known voice, and at other times become a solid brick wall, or a labyrinth. But she, she stood out in the whole fogginess. Right there, so true everything else faded away into another world, another time.
Who was she? I do not know. I didn’t know her at all. To say the truth, I never even saw her properly. All I remember of her, as I put my mind to it now, is this dark shadow, standing in front of the window, silhouetted in the light from a nearby room. Yes, I saw her through a window. I always saw her through a window; the shape and form of her shadow etched deep into my mind.
I remember very clearly the day I saw her first. It was night, a full moon night I remember, and the unnaturally large disc of the moon stood poised on top of frail, listless clouds as I walked back home from the market. I remember the moon, for I remember having seen it and wondering why, after all, did the moon have to be so large, why it didn’t simply fall away from the earth, leaving the world in its well-deserved darkness. That was when I stopped, for some reason, in front of the house just opposite my own, still looking at the moon and wondering. It was then I had a feeling someone was up close, and I turned my head to look.
And there she was. Behind the window the scratches in whose glass reflected the moonlight in diffuse patterns she stood; all that was visible of her was a dark shadow, her hair fallen delicately on her shoulders, and ruffled slightly by an unfelt wind, her hands pressed on the glass, her fingers trembling delicately as her chest heaved gently in a slow, melancholy sobbing. I went and stood directly in front of her, imagining she would perhaps see me and back off from the glass, but she just stood there, even when I stood right in front of her; the weight of her sorrow was perhaps too large. There she was, still, yet so full of life that her sorrow pierced my heart, silent, yet so loud her cries banged into my eardrums. For some reason, I thought I looked into her eyes, her eyes filled with slow pearl like tears that stood poised on the cheek, the final stand of beauty as it fell to the harshness of the world, her eyes that beheld so much depth they drowned me in them completely, that held so brilliant a flame they set fire to my soul, that for several days, months, years to come would become the definition of life for me; the eyes that I could not see and yet could look at with wonder and awe.
That was not the only day I saw her. Throughout the next few weeks, I saw her often; sometimes in the divine light of late evening, sometimes in the darkness of a moonless midnight; always the same, though, the same shadow, sobbing gently behind the glass. Sometimes she would just stand there, looking, or so it seemed, at the far end of the road, her hands gently caressing the window sill even as her mind, I imagined, caressed her injuries. At such times, she would be more silent, less sorrowful, and no one who looked at that shadow of the lady behind the window would have refused to call her beautiful, and indeed divine; so perfect was the rustle in her hair as it fell on her shoulders, so true was the movement of her fingers. And at other times, she would fall back into her grief, crying softly as she pressed her hand against the glass; pressed it as if she was reaching out, wanting to come out, searching for that lone hand, any hand that would grasp hers and lift her out of her misery, bring her into the light that she so clearly deserved. That was the image she evoked, trying to reach out, and that was what prompted me one day to place my hand on the window exactly where her hand was. I wanted her to know I was with her, I would help her, bring her light; I wanted her to know that I would clasp her hand, but she did not notice. Perhaps because I never could do what I promised, perhaps because I never could understand. Perhaps because, somewhere, the chasm between us was more than just an inch-thick glass window.
Yet, that single touch on the glass sent tremors through my heart and soul.
And at all times, it was just a shadow. The same form every time, the same light from a distant room, the same silhouette that held me in its depth. And above all that same inherent sorrow that was so deep it drowned me, and yet so beautiful it gave everything a pearly, tear-like glow.
Then one day I stopped seeing her. Or rather, she stopped coming to the window. This was the time I actually started doing rounds of the psychiatrist, still trying to pronounce the name of my condition. The doctors were all very busy and helpful, playing as they were with a brand new toy that by a stroke of luck happened to me. Not that I hold anything particularly against them, or against my mother who took me to them, but they did seem enthusiastic to cure me.
But what they did or did not do to me was never my concern. There was only one thing that was real in my life, and that was her, and the fact that she no longer stood at the window left a hundred unanswered questions and a million shattered dreams. For hours everyday I stared into the dark, black void of that room, hoping that somehow the darkness would resolve into that familiar hair on the shoulders, the familiar hand that trembled gently as it pressed on the glass. For hours I waited outside, not knowing why I was doing so, not knowing who I was waiting for, except for that vivid fragrant memory of the days gone by; now nothing more than a silent reverberation in the depths of my heart. Try as I could, I could not forget her. I could not, because there was nothing else but her. Throughout the days she had been at the window, I had spent my day in anticipation of her, my nights in the revelry of her thoughts. But now, she was not at the window, and yet she was everywhere. The shafts of moonlight were her unseen hair, the fragrance of flowers her perfume, the sun in the day her face, and when I closed my eyes, the darkness I saw was but her shadow.
You must understand that this was not that once a day kind of love you come across. In fact, this wasn’t any kind of love at all. For here I was, getting insane, and knowing it, above all; and somehow this girl of my dreams was suddenly the girl of my reality. She was what truth, and reality, and above all sanity meant for me. She was the battle between reality and fantasy, she was the rift between truth and dreams. For even as I thought of her night and day, even as I let her hair run through my hands or put her palm to my lips, there was a dark undercurrent of doubt that nagged my mind: Was she real at all?
The knowledge that I was insane had split my world into two different universes: the real and the fantastic, the truth and my dreams, the real world and my world. To which world did she belong? To question thus, to wonder if the woman I loved was just a figment of my imagination; it chilled my bones and sent searing currents through my heart and soul. The questions would leap up like fire out of a volcano, burning all those thoughts that I was nurturing and reveling in. Often I would cower in a corner, afraid as much of these questions of doubt that screamed in my mind as of the less real ones that whispered in my ears; and yet I was afraid to answer, for I was afraid of the answer. Afraid, perhaps, of the truth.
But soon there came a time when the burden of not knowing who, or where, she was grew too much upon me. I could no longer cower inside myself, living in her memories, real or imagined. She either had to be part of my life, or not exist at all. So I mustered up courage and walked across the narrow road that separated her house from mine. First I looked at the window where she used to stand, but no, she wasn’t there: just a uniform shade of dull brightness. Then I walked around to the main door and rang the bell, but no one answered. I rang the bell twice more before I noticed the large lock upon the front door. With panic welling up inside me, I ran up to the neighbouring house and pressed the door bell frantically.
“Who is it?”, asked a frail, irritated voice from behind the wooden door.
“Umm...”, I said, “Can you please tell me where the residents of 96A have gone?”
“Who are you?”, the voice replied suspiciously.
“Actually, I owed them some money”, I said cautiously, hoping the voice would hurry up and start to trust me.
“They just left for New York”, came the resigned reply.
“New York?When?”, I asked, my heart sinking.
“An hour ago. They have a flight at six.”
A flight at six. A flight at six, and all my dreams and night mares waiting for that flight. I looked at my watch. It was already half past five. If I hurried...
I ran to the main street and jumped into an auto.
As I waited impatiently for the auto to reach the airport, my mind was surprisingly clear. The murky indecisiveness and baseless fear of the last few weeks had all but gone, replaced now by the clear, transparent thoughts of a man with a motive; what had been lurking in the shadows of the mind, waiting, stalking, was suddenly now out in the open. The moment of truth had finally arrived.
I paid off the auto and began to run into the airport.
“Sir, do you have a ticket?”
“Err...no..actually I came to see someone off...”
“Sorry sir, only passengers...”
“This is for the information of all...”
“...are allowed..”
“passengers traveling to New York by Air India flight...”
“...beyond this point.”
“IA 690. Due to technical difficulties the flight has been....”
“But sir...I have to, have to meet this lady....”
“delayed till 7:30 pm”
“Wait...is this announcement about the flight that was to leave at 6:30?” I asked, sudden fountains of hope springing inside my bosom.
“Yes sir. Now will you please step aside and allow the passengers to enter?”, said the guard, politely but firmly pushing me aside.

There it was. I knew now that the love of my life was inside that building. I knew she was waiting, no not for the flight, but for me, for that was what Destiny had meant i to be. Yet, all that remained between me and my destiny was this stupid guard, who just wouldn't let me in.
I came out restless and impatient. I had to get in somehow. I stood there making and discarding plans in my head when for some reason I turned to look at the lounge on the other side of the road, and in the far corner, speaking to the guard, was a young lady. Through the large glass windows of the lounge I saw her; the same hair falling on her shoulders, which I saw now were the darkest of black, the same quivering fingers. Another place, another hour. But the same. The very same. Her fingers shook even as she spoke shyly to the guard, clasping and unclasping each other in a fervent nervousness. I could see her eyes now too, wide open in childish wonder, staring as if even into the depths of mediocrity, her lips, opened into a slight timid, yet gentle smile. She wore a simple pink tee over blue jeans; her entire person gave no indication of any unnecessary adornment or jewelery. Unnecessary because even in the harsh white light of the airport lounge, she looked beautiful, far more beautiful, in fact, than when she had stood there behind the window, setting her hand on the window sill. It was as if the delicate melancholy that had pierced my heart then had crystallised now in her face in so beautiful a manner that all the goddesses of heaven seemed to converge into her, quiver as she quivered, stammer as she stammered.
A car honked and I realised I was standing in the middle of the road: I had walked a considerable distance while still watching her. I sprang off the road, my person electrified by her sight, the air fragrant by her presence. I had found her! And there she was, behind the window again, but now I could reach out and grab her hand. But first, there was the question that remained...
I half ran, half hopped to the door of the lounge, and caught hold of the guard just as he took his seat.
“The lady who just talked to you. Is she travelling to New York?”
“I..I am sorry sir... I don't know if I can give you that information....”
That was enough. That was it. She was real. All those questions that had been burning my heart and soul for all these days had suddenly vanished in a miraculous swipe of fate. She,she of whom I had thought day and night, dreamt even more, was real, and within my reach.
In the electrified ecstasy I was in, I walked gaily upto her.
“Excuse me”, I said gently.
“Uh..”, she began, turning suddenly as if from a dream. She paused a moment, looking timidly at me. Then, “Do I know you?” She asked it more as a question than as a demand for an introduction, as if she were wondering about the question herself.
“I don't think you do. You see, I live in the house opposite yours.”
“Oh”, she said, with feeling. “I am sorry I don't venture out so much.”
“Yeah I know”, I replied, “I haven't seen you much myself. I saw you today leaving with your parents in the evening...they are your parents, aren't they?”
“Actually no”, she said, easing up a little. I noticed that she had stopped clasping her hands, which now lay freely by her side. “They are my uncle and aunt. I had come here for the winters.”
“You live in New York?”
“Yeah, kind of. I mean, my parents live there, so that means I do, of course..but I do come here sometimes.”
“I get it you are travelling on this 6:30 flight everyone is crying about?” I asked.
She laughed softly, but her laughter rang out throughout the airport lounge, which had grown silent, or so it seemed to me. “Yeah. Though I am not exactly crying about it you see.” She looked at her watch. “Umm..I think I must leave now. If I don't get through with the customs check now I probably never will make it to the plane.” She took up her bags and started to leave.
“Wait”, I wanted to say to her. “Why do you stand by the window in the night?”I wanted to ask. “Why do you cry softly?Why don't you come into the light? Why don't you laugh as you laughed now? What grief do you even now suffer deep in your heart?” There were a million unanswered questions that screamed in my ears and swam unchecked in my mind. Yet I asked none. I offered to help her with her bags, but all she had was a handbag and a small valise, so she declined. I muttered a feeble bye, and she smiled in return, but none of the million conversations that were banging inside my head played out. All I did was watch her leave, her person leaving an indelible mark on my soul.

That meeting, however, had cleansed my soul, so to speak. The knowledge that she was real, that she was part of the sane part of me somehow seemed to imply that everything else was too. In the days that followed, my thoughts of gloom and conspiracy, the murky world of my mind collapsed, and was replaced instead by this brand new world, colourful, brilliant, vivid, in which I played in my mind that eventful airport lounge conversation again and again, in a million different ways; always seeing her, her lips, her eyes, her fingers, and often her fingers pressed against the glass. It was a relief to my mind to know its love was true; and it was all it needed. I recovered rapidly, or got cured rapidly. And all the time the psychiatrists looked at me and marvelled at their proficiency, I thought of her, I thought of her when someday, next winter perhaps, she would one day fall into my arms.


It was about 3 years later that the Malhotras came to dine at our house. The Malhotras, in case I haven't told you, is the family who live opposite our house(yes, the very one). It was some function, I remember; I think it was my brother's thread ceremony. We were dining at the table, and Mr. Malhotra was seated right opposite me. “Sir”, I asked,unable to contain my curiosity, “Is your niece still in New York?”
“Pardon?”, he asked, looking up.
“Your niece. Is she still in New York?”
“I don't know who you are talking about”, he replied, “I don't have a niece in New York.”
The sun sets behind me now as I write these words, making vivid red patterns of light and shadow on the wall in front of me. I look at them and wonder. Are these real? These shadows that flit now hurriedly across the wall, contorting themselves into wierd shapes, are they anything real, or just a figment of imagination? Perhaps they are neither. Perhaps life is so too. Neither true nor fantasy, but both, a splash of imagination on the canvas of reality. Perhaps, someday, sitting on an easy chair struggling to see these patterns that are so evident now, I will understand. Understand that sometimes, it does not really matter who or what you are in truth, what you see, hear or feel in reality. Understand that sometimes, shadows flit past that are not of anything real or true, and yet are more meaningful in their fantasy. Understand that, when all of life is flowing past in the blizzard of reality, perhaps sometimes we must accept whatever little warmth comes our way unquestioningly, even if it is just a fantasy, even if it is just a shadow with its hand pressed against the glass.



Endnote : This story has its origins in a kind of daydream I had one day, sitting in a boring Physics class and trying desperately not to doze off. To be fair, I had a fever of around a 102 that day, and in the delirium that accompanies such a high fever, I suddenly had this little vision, this image of a shadow, nothing more, the shadow of a girl, seen through a window.

I thought nothing more of it that day, of course, for I fell asleep soon after, but about a week later, in a sudden flurry of inspiration, I wove a story around it, and in a whirlwind session of writing (I had never before written so much in such a short notice) I wrote down about five pages or so of it.

At least half of the credit for this story must, however, go to my friend, whose name I wonder if I can mention here. I had written down all about this strange little love affair, all about the shadow, right till the point when the girl behind the window disappears. But where should the story go after that? What would happen to the protagonist? I asked this friend of mine, and in a half-serious tone, he said that my dear narrator would go to bed with another girl thinking it was her!

And that was when the whole story in its current form was framed in my mind. Suddenly, it was all in front of me, crystal clear, and it so infused me with joy when I wrote it that I mailed it to a couple of my friends, with the subject "The best thing I have ever written". In retrospect, perhaps it isn't so good, but it had me started on writing as a hobby, so I hold it close to my heart.

The Beginning

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage we never walked
Through the door we never opened
Into the rose garden

T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

You might have guessed, perhaps, that the name for this blog is inspired from these lines above. No, don't ask me what they mean - to say the truth, I don't even know! No, that's not entirely correct of course; I do have a vague inkling, just a vague inkling, mind, of what these lines mean, and this first post is exactly about that very inkling.
When I had put it into my head that I was going to start a blog, and had come to this site and tried to follow their "3 easy steps" (Don't mind the sarcasm, you'll be irritated too if you were on a slow internet connection wondering if the LAN cord is even plugged in), I got pretty frustrated by the fact that I just couldn't get a URL for myself. I mean, I had tried to write down everything, everything, mind, that was even remotely connected with me, and here it is in blithe, red letters, "Sorry that url is not available"! And the whole rummy thing about it is that the stupid thing even gives suggestions, and - what's more- suggestions that sound like those weird chimeras they create in biotech labs. Anyhow, here I was, with a blog in my head, and without a name, and suddenly, this quote flashed by. Like, swoosh. And yes, there it was, all that was me, all that I ever believed in, written in four brilliant verses by (well, everybody calls him that anyway) one of the best poets the world has ever seen.

But what do these lines mean anyway? What, in other words, do I stand for?

Look around you, and what do you see? You are sitting in front of a computer, probably, so you'll have a screen in front. A table, maybe, made of steel, or wood. A room around, with a window maybe, showing the city skyline, something that, like everything else you have seen for eons on end. It is what I see around myself too. But that isn't all there is, is it? Reality isn't all there is.

It is surprising how many of life's greatest experiences are not experiences at all. You undergo an accident, but you have fallen unconscious, so you don't know what happened. You have passed the JEE, yippee, there's your rank on the screen. You have screwed up your exam, great, now sit up in the summer. And yet, when you lie down and close your eyes, what do you see? You see the girl you love, or would have loved, and play out conversations with her that could never be. You see yourself standing and receiving a prize, but that's yet to happen. You hear the next song you might want to compose on your guitar. As the first waves of sleep lap over your soul, you move farther and farther away from the real. You move into that magical world of thought, of fantasy, where a flick of your brush and your deepest desires become true, a blink of your eyes and your greatest fears are in front of you. What matters, in the night, when you fall off to sleep, when you bring out all those life's experiences that you have kept stashed in your memory, is not life at all, but what you saw of it, what you wanted of it, what you dreamed of it. What resides, my friend, in the deepest recesses of your soul, in the coldest waters of your mind, in that unerring servant you call memory, is not reality, not truth, but your very own, personal dream.
And that dream, my friend, is what Eliot talks about. Did what happened happen? Does what comes into memory actually part of our past? And the answer, according to me, is simple. It does not matter. It matters not what is real or unreal. It matters not whether your dreams come true or not. If in the dead of the night you can sigh, and fall off contented, joyous, even a lie told to your heart is a truth. If in its treacherous deceit, memory takes you to the rose garden, would you let go of its hand?